Review: Dust Girl by Sarah Zettel

Callie LeRoux lives in Slow Run, Kansas, helping her mother run their small hotel and trying not to think about the father she’s never met. Lately all of her energy is spent battling the constant storms plaguing the Dust Bowl and their effects on her health. Callie is left alone when her mother goes missing in a dust storm. Her only hope comes from a mysterious man offering a few clues about her destiny and the path she must take to find her parents in "the golden hills of the west": California.

Along the way she meets Jack, a young hobo boy who is happy to keep her company — there are dangerous, desperate people at every turn. And there’s also an otherworldly threat to Callie. Warring fae factions, attached to the creative communities of American society, are very much aware of the role this half-mortal, half-fae teenage girl plays in their fate.

Review:
Throughout the entire book I got the feeling that the author was trying to convey a message but I had no idea what the message was.

This is a different faerytale from the norm. The author clearly knows her history of the dustbowl of America and human rights concerning blacks at the time the story’s set.

In fact the history knowledge actually got in the way of the story for me. The story itself was a little too weak with random occurrences that don’t hold any purpose in the story. The beginning entrance of the Native American was one of those that occurred.

We have clichéd moments such as the scene in the field where our main protags are being chased. Relations that suddenly appear from nowhere assuring Callie that they can help with the most bizarre and unreal get-out scenarios. Our main male protagonist, Jack, does a disappearing act making us believe he’s run out on her, and he has.

The dance-off at the end really ended it for me. How could all the ‘good guys’ allow Callie to even enter a ball room knowing what her family are going to do to her and Jack. Plus any romance was non-existent.

Unfortunately, I found the story a little dull in comparison to the descriptive setting originally created.